Insider Details About Mohamed Al-Fayed's Relationship With Princess Diana
Before the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales she was very closely associated with the Al-Fayed family. She had been romantically linked with Dodi, of course, but she was also friends with his father Mohamed, the owner of the famous London department store Harrods. Their relationship was tackled in The Crown, but the truth ran far deeper and is in many ways stranger.
Al-Fayed
Mohamed Al-Fayed led an incredible and at times downright bizarre life. He was born in 1929 — though he always claimed he’d arrived into the world in 1933 — and began a career in business as soon as he reached adulthood.
He was also born with the surname “Fayed” and only added the “Al-” part later. Some think that he did this to imply he was from an aristocratic family, when in fact this wasn’t actually the case.
Powerful people
First, Al-Fayed and his family created a shipping company in Egypt, but that wasn’t enough for him. The entrepreneur began associating with rich people and world leaders and embarking on more and more ambitious projects.
In the 1960s he moved to London and continued his work, all the while forming business deals with more and more powerful people. By 1979 he had bought the Ritz Hotel in Paris and had become the private owner of Harrods.
Not accepted
Al-Fayed began rubbing shoulders with the royal family. He badly wanted to make it into the British “upper classes,” but it has always been incredibly hard for outsiders to truly break into that elite world.
“Nobody quite accepts him,” said one-time Daily Express executive editor Alan Frame to Vanity Fair in 1995. “We’re still a class-ridden society. He sponsors lots of things involving the royal family, and he’s still not accepted.”
The family
Al-Fayed had his own family to focus on, as well. In 1954 he had married Samira Khashoggi, and that relationship resulted in Dodi. The marriage only lasted two years, but the connections and notoriety of Khashoggi’s family helped Al-Fayed to get ahead.
Then in 1985 he ended up tying the knot with a former model named Heini Wathén; he went on to have four children with her. These were Jasmine, Camilla, Karim, and Omar.
Diana
But no matter the myriad other things he had in his life, Al-Fayed seemed to be obsessed with the British royal family. And this single-minded preoccupation eventually led to him meeting Diana.
At the time the princess was one of the most-photographed and famous women in the world. It seems today no-one can be sure for certain when Al-Fayed had first met her, but they were seen together at a polo match in the summer of 1987.
The Windsors
Al-Fayed was interested in the wider royal family too, even the members who’d ended up in disgrace. In 1990 he’d even bought the Parisian house that had once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
“It’s like a mausoleum,” he told People magazine at the time. “It sometimes gives you the creeps — both of them having died here. But it’s still a happy place, a great fantasy which I love to live in.”
A great empire
Talking to People, Al-Fayed explained why he’d bought the home. “The impression of a great empire and a King dropping everything because of his love for a woman — this is what I lived with as a child,” he said.
Diana’s father, Earl Spencer, was one of the people who had attended Al-Fayed’s opening party for the French house, and he declared that it had all been “very tastefully done.”
Easygoing
The relationship between Diana and Al-Fayed only deepened as time went on. Diana was a very personable woman, and she needed all the friends she could get as an unhappy member of the royal family.
"Diana is so easygoing with Mohamed,” Michael Cole of Harrods told Vanity Fair in 1995. “Mohamed is not one of those who.s overwhelmed by her. They spark off each other very well.”
Eccentricities
Al-Fayed’s biographer Mark Hollingsworth wrote about the relationship for The Independent in December 2023. “She found his mischievous sense of humor and eccentricities refreshing in contrast to the formal, detached manner of the courtiers,” he wrote.
“‘I know he’s naughty, but that’s all,’ she once remarked. The wealthy store-owner even allowed Diana and her sons to have the run of the exclusive Harrods store in central London on exclusive late-night shopping sprees.
Looking for the right man
Al-Fayed apparently saw himself as a sort of substitute father to Diana. “She had selfish parents. Her mother and her father were absent, left her with nannies… She was looking for the right man who could compensate for what she missed during her childhood,” he told his biographer.
“Unfortunately, her husband was married to her because she was beautiful, provided an heir and then he left, had fun, and continued with his old life. She was there as an incubator.”
Diana, Dodi, and Charles
No-one’s entirely sure when Diana met Dodi. Some think it might have been at a polo match in 1986. Of course, Diana had still been married to the man who is now King Charles III at this point, even though the relationship wasn’t at all a happy one.
It would take until 1992 for Diana and Charles to formally separate. Throughout their marriage the couple’s various affairs and arguments would constantly feature on the front pages of the British newspapers.
Royal divorce
Eventually in 1995 it became clear that Diana and Charles could not salvage their relationship: they would have to divorce. Even Queen Elizabeth II, who had always been firmly against the breaking-up of marriages, agreed.
In December of that year Buckingham Palace released a statement confirming all this. Yes, Diana was no longer tied to Charles, and she could finally publicly date whomever she pleased.
Hasnat Khan
As it turned out Diana had already secretly started dating someone, and the relationship was a serious one. This person wasn’t Dodi Al-Fayed, though: he was a heart surgeon named Hasnat Khan.
Diana had met him in September 1995 and she had been instantly taken by him. She returned to Khan’s hospital in the hopes of striking up a conversation with him, and eventually their friendship turned to love.
Break-up
Diana fell very hard indeed for Khan. Rumor has it she even considered converting to Islam for him, a move which would have sent still more shockwaves through the royal family and the British media.
But the romantic relationship between the couple wasn’t fated to last the course. In July 1997 the pair broke up, and Khan had thought Diana was seeing someone else before the split.
Something wrong
That someone was, of course, Dodi. Just weeks before breaking up with Khan, Diana had gone on holiday aboard Al-Fayed senior’s yacht and his son Dodi had been there. Whatever happened between them had seemingly dimmed Diana’s love for Khan.
“When Diana went to St. Tropez with Mr. Al-Fayed, everything was fine between us,” Hasnat told police during the official investigation into Diana’s death. “After a few days, I felt something was wrong. Her mobile kept going on to answerphone.”
Ulterior motive
Some people believe that Al-Fayed had been pulling strings behind the scenes in order to get Diana and Dodi together. Royal expert Katie Nicholl suggested as much in her 2010 book William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls.
She suggested Al-Fayed had bought a magnificent yacht, the Jonikal, in the hopes Diana and Dodi might find love while vacationing on it. “His ulterior motive was to play Cupid between the princess and his eldest son, Dodi,” Nicholl wrote.
Alone and suffering
Al-Fayed’s biographer Hollingsworth once asked him about this. “Dodi was a grown-up guy,” he said in response. “I didn’t interfere in his life. If Diana liked him and they fall in love, this is life.”
Pooh-poohing the notion he'd harbored any grand match-making plan, he went on, “Diana was alone and suffering. She needed support, security and guidance because there were so many wolves and crooks surrounding her.”
The relationship deepens
Whatever Al-Fayed was up to, it seemed to work: Diana and Dodi got together. Dodi had been in a relationship with a model named Kelly Fisher, but he left her for Diana.
By August 1997 the British media had got hold of photographs of Diana and Dodi kissing. And to add fuel to the fire, by this time Diana was spending another holiday on board Al-Fayed’s yacht with her new beau.
“You are dead”
In 2008 Khan told the inquest into Diana’s death, “I think Diana finally realized that Al-Fayed could give her all the things I could not. He had money and could provide the necessary security.”
He went on, “You never see Al-Fayed without six or seven bodyguards."But seemingly he had been deeply suspicious of his father, Mohamed. He had reportedly told Diana that if she chose to associate with him “you are dead.”
The crash
If Khan really had said those words to Diana, then today they come across as eerily prescient. As we all know, on the last day of August 1997 Diana and Dodi were involved in a fatal car crash.
There had been four people in the car at the time: Diana, Dodi, their driver Henri Paul, and Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones. Of the unlucky quartet involved in the high-speed smash, only Rees-Jones survived.
Grief
Before the calamity Diana and Dodi had dined at the Ritz, which was owned by Al-Fayed. In the fatal accident Dodi died right away; Diana actually survived the initial crash, but she subsequently passed away from her injuries.
When the world woke up to the news, there was a massive outpouring of grief. The princess had been truly loved by the general public the world over and lots of people simply couldn’t believe that she was gone.
Funeral
But as the rest of the world grieved for Diana, Al-Fayed grieved for his son. Dodi was buried in a simple, quiet Islamic ceremony shortly after the crash, in Britain, where Al-Fayed had always wanted his family members to be buried.
There were some tributes left for Dodi among the ones left for Diana. And in addition to the floral mountain that amassed outside Buckingham Palace, bouquets of flowers were also placed outside Harrods department store by sympathetic Britons.
“Like having one of my legs chopped off”
Al-Fayed later told his biographer Hollingsworth exactly what he had been feeling in the days after his son died. “Losing Dodi was very painful, like having one of my legs chopped off,” he said.
But then he segued right back to the deceased princess. He added, “Diana suffered a lot in her life, especially in her marriage, but I believe she died very happy,” he said.
A terrible accident
As time went on, Al-Fayed grew more and more convinced that it had been the British royal family, or agents acting on their behalf, who had been responsible for the deaths of Diana and Dodi.
In truth, it’s far more likely that their deaths were just a horrible and preventable accident. Their driver Paul had been drunk on the night of the crash, they were being chased by paparazzi, and none of the occupants of the car had been wearing seatbelts.
Conspiracy theory
Al-Fayed had given an emotional interview to the Daily Mirror in February 1998. "I believe in my heart 99.9 percent that it was not an accident,” he said. “That car didn't accidentally crash.”
Unconvinced by official accounts of what had transpired, he went on, “There was a conspiracy. I will not rest until I have established exactly what happened. I have great confidence in the investigators in Paris and I believe that we will find the truth.”
Denial
Al-Fayed told the Daily Mirror, “Everybody wants to blame the driver. It suits everyone to say it was just a drunken driver. But you have to remember that drinking is part of the French lifestyle.”
Sounding a bit like he was in denial, he went on, “Many people drive over there with alcohol in their blood, but it doesn't mean they are incapable of driving. Nothing in his performance in the hours leading up to him driving the car suggested he was drunk or incapable of driving.”
Engagement ring
And lastly, Al-Fayed was convinced that Dodi had actually proposed to Diana before their tragic deaths, and she’d said yes. “I know the truth because I am his father. He rang me personally to tell me that they were engaged,” he said.
It later came out in the inquest that Dodi had indeed bought an engagement ring for Diana, but there was no indication that he’d actually proposed to her, or that she’d accepted.
“Unhelpful and upsetting”
The royal family understandably weren’t happy about Al-Fayed’s conspiracy theories. “This continued speculation is both unhelpful and upsetting to the family,” a spokesman for Diana’s office told the BBC after the Daily Mirror interview.
Meanwhile, refusing to comment directly on Al-Fayed’s incendiary claims, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace had simply declared, “The investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to make any comment while that is the case.”
More theories
In 2004 when a protracted investigation into the deaths was launched, Al-Fayed continued to slam the royal family in the press, constantly accusing them of being responsible. “I'm not doing it just for me, but I am doing it also for the children of Diana,” he told CNN.
He also claimed, “I discovered from a very important member of MI6 that Henry Paul was on their payroll.” But the grieving wealthy store-owner seemingly had no physical evidence to back up this allegation.
Pregnancy?
One point that Al-Fayed was adamant about was that Diana had been pregnant with Dodi’s child on the night she had died. This was, he claimed, a hidden motive for the royals to have her killed.
The Harrods owner claimed in 2003 that Diana had phoned him and told him she was expecting a child. But post-mortem tests on Diana’s remains proved that there had been no evidence of pregnancy whatsoever.
Seatbelts
In 2008 Khan was asked about these conspiracy theories during the ongoing inquest and he said, “I have no views regarding a conspiracy, and I think Diana could have married whomever she wanted.”
He went on, “Personally, I think it was a tragic accident. “ Yet he did also add, “But I am very surprised that she was not wearing a seatbelt at the time. She was always very particular about putting her seatbelt on.”
Innocent Victims
In 2005 Al-Fayed had a statue built of Diana and Dodi for display in Harrods. It depicted them dancing beneath a bird and it was titled Innocent Victims. The intended jibe was obvious.
"I have named the sculpture Innocent Victims, because for eight years I have fought to prove that my son and Princess Diana were murdered," Al-Fayed declared when the statue was unveiled.
“Murder” claim
Al-Fayed saved his most vicious words for his 2008 appearance at the inquest. In this legal setting, he accused Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh of being a Nazi. The Queen’s husband was the person he most blamed for the alleged “murder.”
He declared that he had been the only person Diana and Dodi had told about the alleged pregnancy, and he claimed that they had intended to announce their engagement three days after their evening at the Ritz had it not been for the car crash.
“Cleared the decks”
Al-Fayed claimed that many high-profile people, including Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair and even Diana’s own sister, had been involved in her death. He was obviously not coping very well with his loss: few took his claims seriously.
Of Charles, he said, "He participated and I'm sure he knew what was going to happen, because he would like to get on and marry his… [Queen] Camilla, and that is what happened. They cleared the decks. They finished her.”
The inquest concludes
The long inquest didn’t end with the conclusion that Al-Fayed had clearly wanted. In April 2008 it was announced that the court found that there had been “gross negligence” on the part of Paul.
The official verdict handed down was that Diana and Dodi’s deaths were officially the result of both their driver being drunk on duty, and of neither of them wearing a seatbelt in the car.
“Reservations”
After the inquest, Al-Fayed went on ITV News and in the interview he gave to them he seemed to have given up on his conspiracy theories. “I’m a father who has lost his son and I’ve done everything for ten years,” he said.
He went on, “But now, with the verdict, I accept it, but with reservations," he said. He also said he was stopping his fight “for the sake of the two princes, who I know loved their mother.”
Al-Fayed’s death
Mohamed Al-Fayed died at the age of 94 on August 30, 2023, almost exactly 26 years since his son’s death. He was eventually buried right next to his beloved son Dodi at the family plot in Surrey.
Al-Fayed’s own demise led to plenty of people coming out with stories about him. Lots of them told how in his later years the magnate’s views had perhaps mellowed in relation to his conspiracy theories.
Backing off
In September 2023 his friend and former P.R. man Chester Stern told The Sun, “He mellowed in his view as he got older. He had backed off it being a direct conspiracy led by Prince Philip in more recent years and just spoke about an ‘Establishment’ conspiracy.”
The former spokesman went on, “He stopped being so vocal about it all after the inquest. He didn’t publicly accept that it was an accident, but he may have privately accepted it.”
The princes
It may have been Diana’s sons — William, Prince of Wales and Harry, Duke of Sussex — who led him to stop antagonizing the royal family. “The only member of the royal family who might have maintained contact with him in his later years would be William,” Stern said.
“William and Harry were very fond of him and Mohamed liked them a great deal. As sons of Diana, he absolved both of them from any animosity he felt towards Prince Philip and Charles.” But what sort of conversations they had, we’ll simply never know.